Oops!!

[TRAMPLINEMAN]

Things that go bump in the night.

 

[DavidC]

Gonna be hard to find the right tire to fit that

 

[jhenderson]

Dark and snowy. At least it happened under optimum conditions.

 

[Wiredawg]

is the inboard tire gone too?

 

[jhenderson]

Sure looks like it.

 

[TRAMPLINEMAN]

is the onboard tire gone too?

Yes, tire is blown and rim is almost as bad as this one. Conditions were anything but optimum. 10:30 at night with no cell service about a mile down an overgrown cabin road I had to cut my way into in about 2 feet of snow. I had to clear cut an opening to get turned around, which is not handy with two blown tires. After getting turned around, the ride out was waaay worse than the ride in. That truck lost a good 10 years off its life in that trip.

 

[mwilson]

Don't look now, but I think there is frost on your nuts......

 

[Wayne M.]

Ahh crap. I hope your caliper n stuff are ok! Hope you’re ok! and defrost those nuts!

 

[Tuesdak]

@TRAMPLINEMAN
I salute the things you have to go through to get or keep the power on for others!

 

[mwilson]

@TRAMPLINEMAN
I salute the things you have to go through to get or keep the power on for others!

I second that!

I used to do part time maintenance work on the bucket trucks and pickups for our “Hydro”....
Many people have no idea what linemen go through to keep the lights on.

And about 25% of my local guys are bat crap crazy...my personal favorite was my father having to go rescue one in the middle of the night...

The rescued one takes a majority of on call duty. The truck stays with him. He was called out for an outage in the middle of the night down one of the gazillion camp roads we have, typical outage where a tree limb got between everything and popped the fuse.
Gets set up, extends the bucket and the truck quits. Tried to lower the bucket but the electric over ride would not work. Radio is in the charger which is in the nice warm truck cab, flashlight in there with it.
He shinnies down the slippery extended boom sections in the dark. And makes it.
Root cause?? Forgot to fuel up.....

 

[jhenderson]

We USED to have what we called “ Trouble Men.” Same as mike described. Now that’s a thing of the past. Now it takes at least 4 hrs and a supervisor + a bucket truck and lineman to deal with what Mike described. Home to problem for the supervisor, home to shop to problem for the lineman AFTER the supervisor confirms trouble. Union + monopoly+ political appointees on the Public Utilities Commission leaves the customers on the dirty end of the stick. Especially when the company is based in the U.K. Rant over.

 

[TRAMPLINEMAN]

@TRAMPLINEMAN
I salute the things you have to go through to get or keep the power on for others!

Thanks hey!! Even on my worst days I really don’t complain. My office is outdoors in a different location almost every day, that’s hard to beat. And, I chose to do this job

 

[TRAMPLINEMAN]

I second that!

I used to do part time maintenance work on the bucket trucks and pickups for our “Hydro”....
Many people have no idea what linemen go through to keep the lights on.

And about 25% of my local guys are bat crap crazy...

I’m that guy. I will do whatever I have to to get the job done. I could tell you some stories, but I’d rather not incriminate myself on the interweb.

 

[TRAMPLINEMAN]

We USED to have what we called “ Trouble Men.” Same as mike described. Now that’s a thing of the past. Now it takes at least 4 hrs and a supervisor + a bucket truck and lineman to deal with what Mike described. Home to problem for the supervisor, home to shop to problem for the lineman AFTER the supervisor confirms trouble. Union + monopoly+ political appointees on the Public Utilities Commission leaves the customers on the dirty end of the stick. Especially when the company is based in the U.K. Rant over.

A lot of places are getting rid of troublemen. Why? It saves the company money. They don’t care that it takes longer to get your power back on.
When a troubleman responds to a call, he himself can find the problem and if it’s not too involved, can fix it himself in short time. This eliminated waiting on a supervisor, who normally has no idea what they’re looking at, and fixing the problem faster. Troublemen used to keep their work trucks at home to cut down on response time. Now, companies don’t allow that. They want control of everything and we all know how that works out for the rest of us.
I hear what you’re saying about unions and political bs. I’ve belonged to three unions: steelworkers, iron workers and the ibew. The steelworkers was a complete joke. About 95% of the 1400 employees were absolutely useless. Those were the ones who the union protected. I had 15 grievances filed against me in 3 ½ years for doing other people’s jobs who wouldn’t do their jobs. The ironworkers union was better, but not much. The IBEW has been great. If you don’t do your job, you’re gone. The union helps those who help it. I once fired 41 guys in 30 days, not one grievance was filed. I didn’t make any friends on that job, but those guys weren’t friends I wanted anyway.

 

[Wiredawg]

I was a program manager for Emergency Mass Notification System for 13 military installations. Both the primary AND backup sites went down on a weekend and the contractor could not reach ANY of the military POCs to get the systems back up. They called me as the program manager, so I immediately called my boss to inform her of the situation and my plan to work it by contacting the commanders at the sites directly. She told me it wasn't my JOB to work restoration, and I responded it is mission critical system that needed any and all resources to restore operation. She reluctantly agreed, so I contacted the commanders at the affected sites directly and they engaged their network folks to work the problem. After about 5 hours, both primary and backup sites were fully restored. My boss called me in the office the next work day where she chastised me for working "out of my lane" and directed me to never do it again.

So, that's why I retired early... inept leadership NOT understanding the risk implications of a critical system down, only her limited view of job descriptions.

Anyhoo, there's some job support we do better, but more that has been lost to beurocrats and accountants. In the end, there is no savings, only less capability.

Ah reacon ah'm DONE with my rant. Sorry.

Cheers, Ron

 

[jhenderson]

My wife’s best friend’s husband was a business agent for the local IBEW. He got fired for canning apprentices if more than 2 contractors complained about them for the same reason. He apparently had the same work ethic as you and me. He learned it from his father who was a B/A for the Bricklayers. Work or go home. It seems as though unions are a lot like the people they ( supposedly ) serve. There’s good and bad everywhere.

 

[TRAMPLINEMAN]

It seems as though unions are a lot like the people they ( supposedly ) serve. There’s good and bad everywhere.

You won’t get an argument here from me, I totally agree. No matter where you go, there will always be a bad apple(maybe two). I’ve just always separated myself from them. When that wasn’t possible, I’d confront them head on. It’s funny that confrontation normally lead to positive results. When not, meeting them at the bar after work usually did the trick.